Living, Loving and Creating in the Pacific Northwest

Under a Clear Blue Skye

There’s always a sadness when you finish a project mixed with the joy of the anticipation of projects to come.

Nick on a warm Saturday afternoon on Knit in Public Day at West Beach on Orcas Island “I’m hot!”

Nick’s sweater is finally, finally done and just in time for Knit in Public Day 2015. I simply couldn’t stop saying to my husband as we ferried over to Orcas Island that morning, “I made this! I made this!” It is truly one of my favorite things I’ve made. When I tried it on (of course before I told him it was complete) I thought how much I wanted a sweater just like it. Maybe I’ll make a great sweater out of the new yarn I picked while I was there.

Lining up the sleeve and the chest pattern on a bottom up sweater was a challenge!

What makes this sweater exciting is the yarn. In different lights it takes on different colors–from a rich blue outdoors at twilight to a faded denim indoors. Many thanks to Handspinner Having Fun in Broadford, Scotland for making such a lovely, soft and cuddly DK. I wish I’d finished it before I came by the shop last month, but I’m so glad I got too share it on Instagram with the shop.

Patterns: This was based on two knitting patterns with modifications. The structure is largely found in Men’s sweater Simon by Faina Goberstein. The fabric pattern is from 210-211-56 Men’s Sweater by Pierrot (Gosyo Co., Ltd).

Modifications: The reason for two patterns instead of one is that Nick thought the garter rib of the Simon pattern was a bit boring, so after much searching for one he liked, I settled on the 210-211-56 as the main body fabric (12 stitch repeat+6). So there was a bit of math, but I think it was well worth it.

One big change I made is the embellishment runs horizontal, not vertical running up the sleeve as the pattern calls for. The worry was aligning the patterns in a bottom up sweater. The trick was to start the sleeve shaping exactly after the pattern on both sleeves and chest. Worked perfectly!

Something I didn’t, but might modify, is the large neck opening. This is a feature the pattern, and partly why I selected it, as Nick didn’t want it close to the neck. If make another, and given how happy I am with this I just might, I’ll knit higher up the chest before starting the neck shaping on the front or knit the opening for a smaller size.

And since the sweater was inspired by Scotland, despite me missing the target of Nick wearing it there, here are some photos from our trip there last month.